Captain's Comments: Liverpool

Before each home game, Eagles skipper Scott Dann previews his side's upcoming match in his programme notes. Here he speaks ahead of the visit of Liverpool.

After missing the last few matches, I’m looking forward to hopefully being back involved and trying to put in a good performance to help us get a result.

It has been the longest time I have been out since I’ve been at Palace, and the four weeks have felt like four months; it’s been a nightmare! I’m not one for sitting on the sidelines watching games so I haven’t taken it very well, but I’ve been working hard to keep myself up to speed so that when the injury was fully healed I was able to go straight back in.

It’s nice that my comeback is against these opponents. Being from Liverpool and supporting them it’s always special to play against them, and as it was unfortunate to miss the Everton game it’ll be nice to play Liverpool this weekend.

We need to put in a good display for our home fans after what happened against West Ham United two weeks ago, and looking back we know we need to do better. There weren’t that many chances in the game but it was a performance which we have looked back upon and know where we can improve.

A lot was made of Christian’s penalty, but the boys are all backing him. Anyone can miss one but he’s the type of person who won’t let it affect him the next time he steps up. I’m sure that when he does, he’ll put it in the back of the net and I know all the lads are confident about him doing that.

Last week I was touch-and-go to be fit to play at Leicester City and travelled with the squad, but having only trained on the Thursday and Friday it was probably just a bit too much of a push to start the game. We decided it wasn’t worth taking the risk having been out for four weeks, and the decision was made that instead I should try and make myself ready for this game.

It was strange watching the boys from the stand - I’m not the greatest of watchers as I head and kick every ball so it’s never easy to watch knowing that your teammates are out there without you trying to help them get the result.

Hopefully I can do that this afternoon instead, but it’ll be a challenge. I’ve been impressed with Liverpool this season; they’ve started really well and you can see what they’re about. They’ve carried on doing what they did for parts of last season and scored lots of goals which means it’s going to be a difficult game for us, but we’re looking forward to it as it’s always good to test yourselves against the best, and at the moment that’s what Liverpool are.

We have had a good recent run of form against them over the past few years, but this is a new season and so I don’t think you can rely too much on that. We just want to put in a good performance in front of our home fans, and hopefully that’ll see us get a similar result to what we have had in recent seasons.

Don't forget the 88 page matchday programme will be available around the stadium on the day of the match, priced just £3.50, or can be download to your iPad or Android device for just £1.49.